I provide:
In strategy and digital consulting, the task is to figure out how to achieve what we want to achieve. This is not purely a ‘thinking’ task: it often involves action and learning from experiment. Achieving an organizational or project goal may entail ‘lots of digital,’ only a little, or none at all. It may involve ‘classic’ questions in digital strategy like deciding whether to build a new technology system ‘in house’ or to use or buy an existing software package; it may also involve considering critically the nature of what we want to achieve, and the extent to which digital tools can really help.
To this task I bring my professional training and research background in human-computer interaction and—perhaps more importantly—over fifteen years of experience grappling with these questions in technical and nontechnical roles in a wide range of projects and organizations, including large nonprofits, research, and unfunded activist projects.
In project management and implementation support, you already know—at least roughly—how you intend to achieve what you want to achieve. I support you to actually do it.
My experience has been that execution is often more complex than optimistic and ambitious leaders, designers, and even ‘builders’ anticipate. My experience is also however that this complexity can often be reduced, and that remaining complexity can often be overcome through relatively simple actions—if they are planned clearly and implemented with consistency, focus, and gentle discipline.
Put another way, projects often encounter difficulties in implementation, but these difficulties can often be overcome. I can support you to overcome them.
To this task I bring over fifteen years of experience as a member, (co-)leader, and coach of multidisciplinary teams producing a variety of deliverables, from software to written research outputs.
In coaching, the focus is more on the individual or small team than on the organization or project. Perhaps you as an individual have a personal goal you want to achieve or capability you want to develop. This may be relevant to your work but also have broader implications for your life overall. In coaching we step back from immediate and specific work-oriented goals and outcomes to build and sustain routines and skills.
In this work I build not only on my professional experiences in software, research, and teaching, but also on personal experience including over twenty years doing and teaching physical disciplines such as martial arts and yoga.
I have drawn four main lessons from these experiences. They are simple and often surprisingly applicable to work: First, we must always begin where we are: with our existing capabilities, not with capabilities we wish we had. Second, the importance and power of focus and consistency are often underestimated. Third, don’t overdo it: keep goals realistic and don’t rush. Fourth, complex goals are often achieved by getting the basics right and paying attention to details.
I was surprised to learn, later in life, that research on management and organizations—and on sport performance—seems to confirm these lessons.
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If you think you might like to work with me, get in touch.